


and at the hour of our death

by lyricalprose (fairylights)



Series: Noir AU [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Noir, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-17
Updated: 2013-07-17
Packaged: 2017-12-20 11:56:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/886985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairylights/pseuds/lyricalprose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I thought mobsters fell pretty definitively in the “sinners" category, where God was concerned."</p><p>“God's grace extends to all his children, Dean." Castiel blows a trail of smoke into the air. “And we are all sinners."</p>
            </blockquote>





	and at the hour of our death

“We cannot allow this to go on any longer."  
  
Michael D’Angelo presents an impressive silhouette up against the townhouse window – a tall, well-built man in an impeccably cut gray suit, holding a cigarette almost delicately in his right hand while his left rests on his waist. Castiel can understand why he’s developed the ability to strike awe into the hearts of others.  
  
“What exactly cannot go on, brother?"  
  
“The… _woman_ is gaining too much ground." Castiel has never heard Michael refer to Lilith by her name. It is always _the woman, she, the upstart._ But he refers to her more and more often now, and if Castiel did not know Michael better he would say that he is starting to hear fear in his voice when he does.  
  
“What do you suggest that we do?"  
  
“You may recall that a detective from the 13th Precinct went missing at the beginning of May." Michael turns his back to Castiel, to look out the window. “Disappeared somewhere in Brooklyn, presumed dead."  
  
“I cannot say that I recall that, no."  
  
“Our informants tell me that this detective is in Lilith’s hands. Why, they do not know." Michael turns again, fixes his eyes on Castiel, and the light slants harshly across what can be seen of his face.  
  
“I would have you…retrieve him, Castiel."  
  
—-  
  
Castiel knows that he’s marked from the moment that he walks into The Ninth Circle. This club looks innocuous enough, as speakeasies go – it’s even elegant, positively dripping with silk and diamonds and well-heeled patrons.  
  
But he has been in this business more than long enough to feel at least three pairs of eyes on him the entire night. The bartender – a woman, how odd, the way Lilith does things – has been eyeing him off and on from the moment Castiel walked in. The piano player, a dark-haired man with a skeletal build and a slightly crooked nose, keeps glancing curiously at Castiel between songs. Even the singer, a pretty blonde in a shimmering red number, lets her eyes linger on him a little too long every once in a while.  
  
The blonde woman sitting alone at the table on the far in of the club – Lilith herself, if Castiel is not mistaken – has not looked at anyone else all night. She holds herself the way Michael does, confident bordering on regal, fully aware of her power and position. She looks every inch the stylish, high-society woman, dressed in a smart blue gown, diamond bracelet and earrings, hair curling softly on her shoulders with the longer bits pulled back behind a mother-of-pearl pin. She’s watching Castiel as though he’s a bug she’d like to smash into the floor.  
  
As the small hours of the night grow closer and the club grows emptier, the gazes fixed on him from around the room grow sharper, more intense. The singer is long gone, the piano abandoned, and as the increasingly intoxicated remnants of the place filter out, the growing focus of those he knows are watching him is like a physical oppression, like the walls drawing closer in.  
  
He’d only intended to come here and conduct basic reconnaissance tonight, not actually carry out his mission. But it’s beginning to look like he won’t have much of a choice.  
  
The piano player is advancing with a knife in one hand and a revolver in the other, and the bartender is pulling a shotgun from under the bar.  
  
Lilith is nowhere to be found.  
  
Castiel makes the sign of the cross and rises from his chair, his gun a comforting weight in his right hand as bullets start to fly and glass begins to shatter.  
  
—-  
  
Dean wakes up in Central Park at night, on his back in wet grass and wearing the same clothes that he’s been in for the last four months – the shredded remains of a white dress shirt, dirty and bloody gray slacks, plain black shoes in surprisingly good shape.  
  
The first thing that he realizes is that he doesn’t hurt anymore. That there’s no Lilith with her cold, wicked smile, no Alastair with his long fingers wrapped around sharp knives. He can feel the scars and cuts they left behind, but there’s nothing new, nothing fresh, not that he can tell.  
  
The second thing he realizes is that he’s breathing fresh air. Cold, damp, New-York-in-autumn air, but _fresh_ air. Not the smoke-tinged hotbox air in Lilith’s back room, stagnant and warm. He draws in a huge breath and relishes the cold, cleansing rush, tries to hold onto that feeling for as long as possible.  
  
He stands on shaky legs, orients himself and decides where to go. He’s clear across the city from his and Sam’s place. Bobby’s is the closest. He just hopes he’s not on duty, because Dean has no money and he doesn’t want to walk all the way to the precinct. He’s not sure he _can._  
  
He makes it to Bobby’s building, drags himself up the stairs and bangs a bloody hand on the door, and thankfully Bobby’s home. He opens the door halfway and stares at Dean through the crack, evidently shocked, then throws the door open the rest of the way and pulls Dean into a hug. It lasts much longer than either one of them would usually allow before Bobby pulls back and says, " _Dean?_ ”  
  
He’s thankful for the chance to collapse on the couch in Bobby’s study, surrounded by the familiar mess of case files and books as Bobby pours him a glass of the contraband whiskey he keeps hidden under the sink and asks “what _happened_ to you, boy? It’s been _four months_."  
  
He hadn’t realized how long it’d been. Bobby’s familiar study is so jarringly different, so _normal_ that it feels more like it’s been decades. Dean tells him what he remembers. Getting close to something on the string of disappearances and murders in Brooklyn. Checking into a lead on his off time, splitting up with Sam. Getting clocked in the head and slashed at with a knife, lines of searing pain in his chest.  
  
He tells him he remembers names – Lilith and Alastair – but he doesn’t tell him about the pain, the blood, the landscape of new scars on his body, the angry red marks around his wrists and his ankles where the ropes rubbed his skin raw.  
  
If he doesn’t tell anyone else, then maybe he can forget.  
  
“So you just woke up in Central Park tonight, with no idea how you got there? No idea how you got out?"  
  
That’s not entirely true. He remembers a commotion. Shouting. Gunfire. Glass breaking. He’d been a little woozy with pain at the time, but he remembers that. Remembers someone grabbing him, feeling blood that wasn’t his own on his skin, the warmth of another person’s hand on his shoulder, gripping him tight and dragging him somewhere.  
  
He tells Bobby that he remembers that, and while he’s mulling it over Dean finishes his whiskey and makes to get up.  
  
“Now I gotta get to Sam, Bobby."  
  
Bobby stops him before he can rise all the way off the couch.  
  
“Dean, first you should know that I haven’t been able to talk to Sam in months. I don’t even know where he is for sure."  
  
“What? Bobby, _why?"_  
  
“He didn’t want to be talked to. He quit ‘bout a month after you disappeared, clean up and left. Rufus over in the 26th tells me that he’s heard about him doin’ detective work on the side, freelancing. Got himself an office or an agency or something like that. He must be sleepin’ there too, because I’ve been by your old place hundreds of times and he’s not answerin’ the door."  
  
Bobby takes a drink of his own whiskey. “One thing’s for sure, though. He never gave up on you, boy. Swore up and down that you weren’t dead, laid into anyone who insinuated that you might be."  
  
Dean nods, feels a warmth in his chest at the knowledge that Sam is _alive_ – because he’d wondered, when no one came for him – and that he hadn’t given up. “Well, we’d better start looking for him, then. I’m just – gonna clean up, first. You got any spare clothes I can borrow?"  
  
Bobby lends him a fresh set of clothes, all a little too big, and Dean retreats to the bathroom, where he stands there and looks in the mirror for a long time, staring at the bloody handprint on his black-and-blue bruised shoulder as though there’s something it can tell him.  
  
—-  
  
Eventually, he and Bobby find Sam set up in a drab, closet-like office in Hell’s Kitchen. It’s in a building owned by a bad-tempered Irish woman, the last door at the end of a badly-lit hallway. The nameplate next to the door reads “S. WINCHESTER, PRIVATE INVESTIGATION" in bold black letters.  
  
Bobby’s the one who goes to knock on the door, Dean standing a few feet behind him, but it opens from the inside before he can knock. There’s a smartly-dressed blonde with a sparkling ruby hairpin leaving, and she gives Dean a strange, almost frightened look as she brushes past him and heads down the hallway.  
  
It’s definitely not the reaction he usually gets from women, and he’s about to ask her what she’s so afraid of when Sam appears in the doorway, shock written plain on his features.  
  
“What–" Sam’s apparently speechless. It’s not something Dean’s seen happen very often. He looks profoundly relieved, and a little bit like he’s going to cry. “Dean? Is that – it’s really you?"  
  
“Brought someone I thought you might want to see." Bobby remarks softly from his place between them.  
  
Sam’s closing the gap in less than a second, grabbing Dean and holding on like he’ll disappear again if he lets go, and Dean lets him, holding on just as hard before they pull apart and stare, the sheer unreality of the situation seeping in and making the space between them seem impassable.  
  
Sam has them come in, clears a mess of papers and maps off the scratched-up desk so he can sit there and pulls together chairs for Dean and Bobby before he asks “where _were_ you, Dean?"  
  
He tells him the same story he told Bobby. Only this time, Bobby screws up his face like he always does when he’s thinking.  
  
“You said this woman’s name was Lilith?"  
  
Dean nods. “Yeah. Lilith was the woman. Man’s name was Alastair."  
  
“Well, there was an incident last night at a club owned by a Lilith Montgomery. An upscale sort of speakeasy, called the Seventh Circle or something like that, I can’t remember. There was a shootout – real messy, the place was completely destroyed – but nobody dead, as far we can tell."  
  
Bobby looks up at Dean, eyes gently questioning. “Though we did find a back room with an awful lot of nasty in it. Lots of dried blood."  
  
Sam makes an incomprehensible noise, and when Dean glances over Sam looks absolutely stricken, his face gone tight and drawn like he’s realized something awful.  
  
“Sam? You okay?" he asks, grateful for the chance to avoid Bobby’s eyes.  
  
Sam shakes his head and face goes neutral, schooled into an unassuming expression. “Uh, yeah. Keep going, Bobby."  
  
“Anyways, the place was all shot to hell, but mostly empty besides. Lilith and her girls cleared out, and they cleared out good. Nobody’s seen them since last night, and there’s no evidence of wrongdoing except the bullet holes in the walls and the blood on the floor. So we’ve got no clue what exactly happened. The only lead we’ve got is an officer who spotted a known member of the mafia headed towards the club that night. It’s thin, but it’s something."  
  
Dean nods and looks back at Sam, who’s still trying to school his expression into something else. The fact that he’s got no idea what Sam’s trying to hide makes his stomach clench uncomfortably, like he’s bracing for a blow.  
  
“Then that’s where we’ll start. The officer know this mafia guy’s name?"  
  
—-  
  
Dean’s got no idea how to go about finding this D’Angelo guy, so he talks to Pamela Barnes, who he’s gone to for information like this for years. Pamela is a purported psychic and palm reader, Lady of The Cards and Mistress of Destiny, complete with costume jewelry and a stint in a Coney Island sideshow – and an accomplished gossip, who knows everything about everyone that’s ever done business under the table in the city.  
  
She tells him, as she’s scrubbing off a layer of makeup and untangling a huge fake emerald necklace from around her neck, that you can usually find Castiel D’Angelo – who is one of Michael D’Angelo’s brothers, mind you, so Dean had better watch his fine ass – at a burger joint called Jimmy’s in the Meatpacking District on Friday nights.  
  
As usual, her info is right on the money. He heads to Jimmy’s that Friday, asks around and finds D’Angelo in the alley behind the place, standing next to the back wall and smoking a cigarette. It’s damp and cold and there’s a pungent odor of grease drifting out of the restaurant’s open back door.  
  
At first glance, Castiel is nothing like he expected. More tax accountant than mafia, really, with his neatly pressed black suit and drab brown trenchcoat, short dark hair and boring blue tie.  
  
“Hello, Dean." Castiel flicks the ash off the end of his cigarette. “I have to say, it took you longer than I thought it would to seek me out."  
  
He wasn’t expecting that. “You knew I’d be looking for you?"  
  
“Of course. You hardly seem like the type of man to take a good thing at face value."  
  
“So it’s true, then. You were the one who busted me out of Lilith’s place?"  
  
“That was me, yes."  
  
“And how exactly was it that you survived a shoot-up like that, all by your lonesome?"  
  
“By the grace of God." Castiel says it like it’s a fact, indisputable, incontestable.  
  
Dean can’t completely resist the urge to snort, and what comes out is a vaugely amused and highly derisive sort of noise. “I thought mobsters fell pretty definitively in the “sinners" category, where God was concerned."  
  
“God's grace extends to all his children, Dean." Castiel blows a trail of smoke into the air. “And we are all sinners."  
  
“So what? You and the rest of the D’Angelos figure that you get me out and you’ve got your own pet detective? Your in at the precinct? Cause I can tell you right now, if you that’s what you’re thinking you can forget about it. I don’t work for the mob."  
  
“That’s not what you told Lilith, was it?"  
  
Dean’s heart turns to ice in his chest and his brain shuts _off_ , tries to forget _nononopleasestop_ and _anythinganythingjustdon’tnotanymore_.  
  
Castiel takes one last drag from his cigarette and then drops it on the ground, grinds it out under his boot. “You know," he says, crushing the embers under his heel, “I took you from Lilith."  
  
He turns and looks directly at Dean, gaze unflinching. “I could throw you right back to her."  
  
Dean feels like he’s been punched even though Castiel is still standing five feet away, and the icy chill wrapped around his heart is spreading, shooting down his spine and freezing his blood.  
  
“Lilith is dangerous. Far more dangerous than my family will has ever been, or will ever be." Castiel’s tone is even, measured, and he’s still looking right at Dean. “You, of all people, might attest to that."  
  
Dean shifts uncomfortably on his feet. Castiel leans back against the bricks and fixes his eyes on a point on the wall opposite.  
  
“My brother – my _family_ – believes in order. Tradition. Honor. Lilith wants power and control and violence, and if she is allowed to get what she wants then it will be bad for _everyone._ Us _and_ you."  
  
He turns back to Dean, blue eyes points of light even in the darkness of the alley.  
  
“So yes. We do have work for you."


End file.
